The Tuskegee experiment and truth
In the aftermath of the Jeremiah Wright controversy, I keep reading that his assertion that the US government “lied about inventing the AIDS virus as a means of genocide against people of color” is understandable because, after all, the government infected black men with syphilis as part of the Tuskegee experiment (this, for example, is typical of such comments).
The Tuskegee experiment was one of the darkest chapters in the annals of medical research and racism. There is absolutely no question that the researchers involved violated the rules of medical ethics in an egregious manner by finding 399 black men who suffered from syphilis and observing the progression of the disease while denying treatment to them.
The truth is bad enough; there’s no need to exaggerate what happened in order to feel a sense of outrage. But the truth is that no one was ever purposely infected with syphilis by anyone in the US Public Health Service, the group in charge of the experiment. The subjects had already contracted the disease in the natural way, and were recruited after their diagnoses (there was also a control group of 201 black men who did not have the disease).
The experiment is not only a cautionary tale of racism and inhumane treatment, it’s one of hubris in which the doctors initially involved began the study with benign goals and methods in mind, but later researchers became so consumed with their research that they lost sight of the humanity of their subjects.
When the project officially began in 1932, syphilis was widespread among the black population in the area, and the available treatments (for people of any race) were highly risky, mostly ineffective, and frequently extremely toxic—even, at times, fatal. The natural course of the disease, on the other hand, was variable, and sometimes people lived out their lives without too many further health problems. Furthermore, when the study was in the planning stages (during the late 1920s), the initial idea was to “record the natural history of syphilis in hopes of justifying treatment programs for blacks”—treatment they would in all likelihood not have been getting but for the study.
This, of course, was about as different as can be from what the experiment later became. The idea was to withhold treatment for 6-8 months and then administer the best treatment available at the time (the most serious symptoms of syphilis develop very slowly, over the course of many years). However, before the experiment could get that far, the stock market crashed in 1929 and the group that had pledged the funds to finance the treatment withdrew its support.
This left the researchers in a bind. They probably should have stopped right there. But, given the fact that the men involved were not going to be getting any treatment without the study, it probably didn’t seem unethical to change the goal to that of merely studying the natural course of the disease. Since at the time there was no effective help to be had for these men, why not learn something along the way?
There’s no question that the project was severely compromised even at the outset. The men were not told they had syphilis, for example. However, this happened in an age when truth was often kept from patients about terrible and especially fatal illnesses. Patients of all races were also routinely used in experiments of dubious morality, minus anything we would now call “informed consent”—which does not make it right; it merely makes it more commonplace.
The most severe ethical and racist problems developed later. The study, originally envisioned as short-term, turned into years, then decades. As time went on, no doubt the doctors became more and more highly invested in the outcome.
The situation of the Tuskegee subjects became far more pernicious with the development of penicillin in the late 1940’s. It’s paradoxical because now, for the first time, the cure available for syphilis was a real one, reliable and safe, almost always nontoxic and effective.
This is the point at which the experiment segues into a true horror show. Treatment was purposely withheld as the men slowly declined. The whole terrible mess continued till the year 1972, when public exposure and the resultant shocked reaction forced the closing of the experiment, many decades too late.
How is it that doctors originally pledged to help save lives and heal patients ended up doing the opposite? There is little question that racism was part of the picture, as well as grandiose ideas about the value of the research. Treating those patients effectively would have ended many years of work on this experiment. But there is absolutely no question that it should have been ended back in the 1940s, as soon as penicillin became known as a cure. Perhaps, indeed, the experiment never should have begun.
But the story is also an example of the way facts get twisted as time goes on and rumors fly. If one believes that the Tuskegee researchers knowingly and purposely infected these men with syphilis, and that they did so with remarkable callousness because the men were black, then it’s much less of a stretch to believe, as Jeremiah Wright appears to, that the US government invented AIDS to harm people of color.
Rumors and conspiracy theories tend to grow in such fertile field. The truth of Tuskegee is bad enough; no need for lies to make it even worse.
My wife had a huge argument with somebody about the explosions heard, and the questions about, 9/11 and the fall of the towers.
It’s sad, but true, that those who already have a conclusion they want to reach, can usually find “questions” with answers that are not provably true, allowing them to rationalize any other stretch.
Thanks for a fine, relevant, yet also a side post.
I love to learn new stuff. Salute.
I strongly suspect Mr. Thorne, in yesterday’s first comment, is another example of getting carried away with the “truth.”
Sometimes we humans get so carried away with beloved over-riding “truth” – the existence of which we are absolutely committed to – that our beloved overriding truth gets in the way of actual, verifiable truth. This is how CBS’ Bush’ National Guard docs came to be described as “fake, but accurate.” This is how Mohammad Al Dura came to be “murdered” by Israelis. It was fake, but the overriding truth was accurate. This is how much MSM news – especially about beloved things such as racism, gender bias, economic bias – turn out to be “fake, but accurate.” This is how Pres. Bush is an MBA fighter pilot with a low IQ; how Clarence Thomas sexually harrassed Anita Hill; how Halliburton is more corrupt than the UN; how Scooter Libby outed Valerie Plame; how NSA wiretapping is violating civil rights. But I digress.
Mr. Thorne said:
Bull. Mr. Thorne likely does, in his mind, actually believe his story to be true. But, except for the always possible existence of unusual circumstance, his story is untrue. The area of California near Stanford is one of the most liberal places in the U.S. Wealthy and influential black people live all around that area, and traverse to and from Stanford campus every single day. A police force is an extension of the community it serves. It beggars belief that a police force near Stanford University would stop ANYONE for “driving while black.” It simply did not happen. Mr. Thorne, like those who exaggerate the Tuskeegee experiment, simple got carried away.
This is why my manure antennae were instantly raised about Mr. Thorne’s comment. It can be impolite, and hubristic, and jerk-like, to pass judgement on another commenter in this fashion. In this specific case, I deem it fair to comment on Mr. Thorne’s comment. I think it fits into the theme of neo’s Tuskeegee Experiment post.
keep reading that his assertion that the US government “lied about inventing the AIDS virus as a means of genocide against people of color” is understandable because, after all, the government infected black men with syphilis as part of the Tuskeegee experiment
really?
from accuracy in media
http://www.aim.org/aim-report/aim-report-the-lie-that-wont-die/
AIM Report: The Lie that Won’t Die
In one of the most notorious examples of Communist disinformation appearing in the U.S. media, Dan Rather reported in a newscast on March 30, 1987, that a Soviet publication had charged that an American military laboratory had developed the virus that caused the AIDS epidemic. He did not accompany this charge with any comment from the Pentagon or the State Department. This story had been exposed as Soviet disinformation before Rather aired it. Rather had been snared in a Soviet “active measures” campaign that involved the use of Soviet front groups, forgeries and disinformation. Rather still hasn’t apologized for having been taken in by this Soviet fabrication.
===============
The production of a phony KKK flier was less important to the Soviet KGB than their success in getting Dan Rather to air a Soviet charge that the Pentagon had manufactured the AIDS virus. The Soviet Communist officials in charge of propaganda activities must have been ecstatic when Rather put this on the CBS Evening News. The Soviets had placed the charge in over 200 publications, as well as radio broadcasts, in 25 different languages. To get the charge aired on a major American television network was a real coup. It harmed our image around the world. One unfortunate result of the campaign was a proposed class action lawsuit by AIDS victims against the government, charging that the virus was created by the Pentagon and that the government should pay them damages. In citing alleged supporting evidence, an article about the suit noted that “Dan Rather reported the mounting AIDS bio-warfare accusations on the CBS Evening News…incurring the wrath of the Reagan administration, which simplistically labeled it ‘Soviet propaganda.'”
so yeah.. its reasonable that a pastor who is steeped in marxist communist liberation theology and progressivism would continue to spout the propaganda of the country he works for.
no?
oh sorry, forgot this part.
The Soviets themselves have now admitted the campaign was a lie. Yevgeni Primakov, former head of the KGB, admitted in 1992 that “the KGB planted stories in the late 1980s which alleged that the HIV virus was the result of a Pentagon experiment.” Two former officers of the East German intelligence service, the Stasi, published a book in which they told how they collaborated with the KGB to promote the AIDS disinformation, using a Russian-born East German professor, Dr. Jakob Segal. Former KGB officer Oleg Gordievsky, in his book, “KGB – The Inside Story,” said the charge was a fabrication. The leading Soviet AIDS expert, Viktor M. Zhdanov, also repudiated it. It was even disavowed in 1987 by then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who said, “No more lying. No more disinformation,” in an effort to promote a more open foreign policy.
The Soviet campaign was designed to distract attention from its own biological weapons program. Ken Alibek, deputy chief of the main Soviet biological weapons laboratory, discloses in his book, “Biohazard,” that the Soviets had explored AIDS as a weapon but decided it was too unstable for use. But they did add smallpox to their arsenal. They tried to cover up a biological weapons disaster at their own Army biological research facility at Sverdlovsk, blaming the deaths on tainted meat.
note that primikov and the stasi person also were hired and designed our national idea internal papers that were to come into effect this year.
Tuskegee truth
how about going a bit farther than just the surface facts on the study? who was the doctor that implemented it? what did he believe? where did they get the ideas to do this, and who chose to do this?
from notes on The Oslo Study
Begun in 1909 and published in 1928, this study reported on the natural history of untreated syphilis in a group of white males. The racist assumptions then prevalent in American medicine biased physicians to assume that the disease would probably follow a different course in African-American males. Hence many saw value in replicating such a study among blacks in the U.S.
so a similar study was first done on whites in oslo.
a bit more detailed research picked out this plum
The venereal disease section in the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) had attracted a group of physicians who, based on the standards of the day, were often very liberal in matters of race. They were concerned about the relative neglect of the treatment of venereal disease in the African-American community and thought that with better science and better treatment, syphilis could be prevented and cured among this population. They also were more likely than most whites of the day to urge the advanced training and hiring of black staff, work alongside black professionals, and try to form partnerships with the black community. Like most white scientists of their day, they viewed all research subjects, especially the uneducated, as basically unable to grasp the nature of a scientific research project, and unwilling to consent to research unless given special inducements. They were also zealous in trying to advance their scientific and public health agenda for the presumed good of the community.
like medical studies today, which the hospital i am working in always has a problem. the people that are willing to get the cheap reimbursal are not the students, but the poor and indigent. only RECENT law cahnges have sought to protect them. this attitude was not just towards blacks, it was also towards jews and the feeble of any color.
but remember i said… where did the idea and the impetus come from?
i noticed that there is nothing mentioned as to the Rosenwald Fund…
The Rosenwald Fund was a charity supportive of education and health care for African-Americans. In 1929-31, the Fund collaborated with the U.S. Public Health Service to administer a demonstration project for syphilis detection and treatment in 5 Southern rural counties. Of these 5 counties, Macon Co. was found to have the highest rate of endemic infection, 36% of the total black population. Blacks eagerly sought testing and treatment, contrary to the assumptions of many that they were neglectful of their own health and fatalistic about syphilis.
of course, they wouldnt also mention the other things coming from the Julius Rosenwald Fund.
The Highlander Folk School, located in Monteagle, TN, was founded by Don West, District Director of the Communist Party in North Carolina, and Miles Norton Horton, Director of the Commonwealth College. Based upon testimony by members of the school, the school was cited for conducting subversive activities by the state of Tennessee, and closed by court order in 1960.
the julius fund created the school. it was very much involved in black rights and manipulating things.
Rosa Parks attended the school (there are photos of her there). she attended desegregation workshops in 1955, she was arrested in 1955 after she attended these classes.
so they dont point out rosa parks and the movement had unabashed communist roots. as it still does today.
who else went to this school?
Martin luthor king
Pete seeger
Chris Horton
Ralph Abernathy
[you can read about Carl Branden who was also in all this. he was arrested for criminal sedition, since they went about purchasing a home in a white neighborhood then geve them to blacks to create race riots to move the cause along. they later bombed that house to get cause sympathy and went to jail for it]
the organizaiton funded langston huges, who also turned sides later when he found out he was a dupe.
anyway… it was this fund that created the study. and their money that set the terms
So is it any wonder that a liberation theology minister is touting KNOWN propaganda, that leads to commonly unknown propaganda?
from wiki.
Its affiliated hospital lent the PHS its medical facilities for the study, and other predominantly black institutions as well as local black doctors also participated. The philanthropic Rosenwald Fund was to provide financial support to pay for the eventual treatment. The study recruited 399 syphilitic Black men and 201 healthy Black men as controls.
they then witdrew their monies during the depression. but the stage and the ideology was already there, and one would be a fool to think that the doctors selected and a part didnt share that ideology. the secular ideology that allowed the same people to slaughter 50+ million of their own, and experiment on their own, up to even today.
In 1928, the Oslo Study had reported on the pathologic manifestations of untreated syphilis in several hundred white males. This study was a retrospective study; investigators pieced together information from patients who had already contracted syphilis and had remained untreated for some time. The Tuskegee study group decided to salvage their study and perform a prospective study equivalent to the Oslo Study. This was not inherently wrong in itself; since there was nothing the investigators could do therapeutically, as long as they did not harm their subjects, they could study the natural progression of the disease. They reasoned that this would be of benefit to humankind. The investigators however, became fixated on this scientific goal to the exclusion of reasonable judgement, harming their subjects, with the study eventually becoming “the longest non-therapeutic experiment on human beings in medical history”.[7]
basically the doctors fell victim to the effect later studied and exposed clearly to the world in the stamford experiment. where the group mind takes over adn the individuals stop acting as such and get a unfeeling mass mind going.
remember at the same time as this study, Margret sanger was prmoting her “negro project” for their extermination.. another leftist communist darling.
this thread can be followed all through the black community and politics. it would color events very differently in the public mind. but the same press that helped push the aids propaganda, is the same press that can force this issue to take the form they want, and let the full truth fall to the side.
like the others of his time, rosenwald teamed up and used their great fortunes to help construct communism, and fascim in america. ford foundation, rosenwald fund, there are literally thousands now. where do you think code pink gets their money? from these funds, the coordinate the abuse of the monies donated for other things. you can read about it easily enough. but one needs to ahve the desire to see.
we cant ignore that every communist program or thing related to it from the early part of last century, up to and past the cold war, was not to bring us love, joy, and happiness, but to create a long walk through the institutions.
so when the question of something of social, ill or negativeness is up front. wouldnt we do well to figure out if the person is not what they appear to be?
how many people know these links? they are freely available and yuo can look up the information and never ever touch a tin hat site (if your careful).
where did this history go? how did we get this level of stalinism?
it makes obamas defense and position very different if one knows the FULL history, not half the history.
a man enters a mall, he shoots up the place, he is reported in the news as being a lone gunman…
would the fact that he was a follower of radical islam cahnge the nature of your perception?
would the fact that he was a follower of radical islam left out make you operate diffrently?
this is the reason for stalinism, and such things as hate law, that make such reports half truths by law.
study study study.. other wise you have learned nothing from shakespears merchant of venice.
all that glitters is not gold.
which chest do we select to win the “lottery of the caskets”?
read the story, and see whether the gilt rubs off of the shiny one.
[sorry this was so long… but please remember that this is the most lightest of overviews of nearly 100 years of very convoluted history]
The” U.S. developed HIV as a racial weapon against blacks” idea was the most successful of several Soviet disinformation (dezinformatsia) campaigns during the Cold War. There are congressional hearings that are available the delve into these disinformation campaigns (see, for instance, this article and the works cited http://www.espionageinfo.com/De-Eb/Disinformation.html).
This particular meme has been very successful in poisoning the world’s mind for decades and it doesn’t look like it will lose it’s potency any time soon.
I wonder whether Wright ever commented on Mbeki’s less than helpful role in getting AIDS treatment programs running in SA.
What really hurts is the inability of people to put together the facts in front of them to create a picture. Anyone who follows things at all will realize just how far we’ve had to push the boundaries of knowledge to understand just a little of how HIV does what it does. That some secret bunch of government researchers had the knowledge and skill to design this monster is beyond implausible.
As Wolfgang Pauli was known to say “This isn’t right. This isn’t even wrong.”
Artfldgr: Wow! A lot of information! Nice!
njcommuter: Exactly. We’re still worried about the Mad Scientist in his spooky lab, while real scientists are busy ferreting out knowledge to further humanity.
Why these haters of Whites and all things American continue on thier suicidal path is betond me.
“What really hurts is the inability of people to put together the facts in front of them to create a picture.”
That disability works against us in all kinds of ways. The rapid-fire “facts” many conspiracy theorists like to spew often turn out to be unable to fit together unless you add some uncredibly warped pieces, most of which can only really exist in the realm of imagination. The “facts” in “Loose Change,” for example, only fit directly observed evidence if you believe the passengers could be shuffled around at least four different planes in the air at the same time, or that the planes could somehow teleport or otherwise move faster than the speed of light.
Conspiracy theorists can pick at the nits and call them “holes,” but you can’t build a timeline out of holes,
At the time the Tuskagee experiments began, the eugencis movement was popular, and widely accepted among the Scientific community.
You can google “eugenics”, or read the book, “War Against the Weak”, but essentially eugenics holds that some races are superior—the best supposedly being the white, Anglo-Saxon Aryan one—while some: blacks, Eastern Europeans, Jews, are inferior, “human trash,” and that evolution is too important to be left up to—well, evolution. Superior humans were supposed to take charge of inferior humans, to ensure that the unfit didn’t outbreed the fit.
Eugenics also took a dim a view of the handicapped and mentally disabled, as “useless eaters.” A great deal of the cold-bloodedness and inhumanity in the science of the time, and its treatment of the weak and those of “inferior” races can, I think, be traced to this belief in eugenics.
If Mr. Obama was a true leader and man of conscience he would have Goggled and found the information on AIDs, privately brought it to the attention of Pastor Wright and requested a renunciation of his sermon. If the Pastor refused, he should have publicly left the church. But a man who desires power and is assured he has a political future if he appears to accept the beliefs of his community, however wrong, would not show such courage. So we find that Mr. Obama is no more than an educated, intelligent, good looking and gifted speaker who happens to be a mundane, stereotypical politician who wishes to be president of our great country.
amr,
that would suggest that he is for the things that the left has NEVER been about.
the left has ALWAYS lied since what they want to create is not something that the average person would accept IF THEY COULD PUT THE PIECES TOGETHER AND NOT DENY WHAT THEY SEE.
And for those not in the know.
Pauli was brutal. (and another guy kept sleeping with the other physicists wives).
i am physics trained, and so i seem to be able to discuss difficult things and hold to a neutral view.
a neutral view is possible… it all is in how you word things… so if they assert that its not possible, and give an example (glass half empty, glass half full). all they wait for is someone to show that they are not correct.
we accept that this view, half empty and half full, is subjective. most would argue that because of such, everything is subjective. however, in this case its only subjective if you are forced to choose, and not see them as a supposition of states. both answers as well as others like them are all valid.
but then how does one write or communicate or have the correct mental view so that one doesnt start creating bias and then making everything subjective, thereby fulfiling the lefts ideal of everything is relative?
simple.. you dont use loose meaningless terms.
half full or half empty… full is the neutral term.. empty is a neutral term.. (if you dont accept air as a filler).
halving a neutral term creates what?
it requires another term to correct it.
the lower half is full, the upper half is empty.
again.. a game..
a physicist (a group most grounded in reality), would say that you dont heve enough X to fill the glass, so either you are short the substance or your glass is too big. if your mixing a drink, the vermouth touched the glass, then the ice, and gin…
: )
There was a scientific consensus. Get with the program, science is the new religion. What must be done in the name of science, will be done.
Can I get an Eureka?